'[They] tried to get sole custody of both of their children...who are in their 20s': 15+ Wild divorce cases

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
May 21, 2024 3:00 PM EDT

These divorce lawyers and divorcees have seen tough times. In divorce law, you see all kinds of marriage drama, as numerous legal professionals told u/DarkFander in response to their question. This person wanted lawyers and divorced people to share their "evil, funny, dumb" ways that a spouse tried to get back at the other. 

Divorce law is known for being an immensely petty kind of business. Two people go from saying their vows and promising to love each other forever, to fighting over their house and cars years later. As if it wasn't bad enough that the relationship ended, the couple now has to involve a legal team and spend thousands of dollars to get things straightened out. 

If you go through a calm divorce proceeding, you can count your blessings. More than 13,000 people shared their stories. Some are minor, like a couple who were fighting tooth and nail over an ashtray. Others get petty in bigger ways: after all, when things like boats or houses get involved, both parties may feel entitled to these things. It's messy all around, whether you're the lawyer or the poor couple going through the divorce. 

Check out all of the interesting stories below. Then, have a laugh at the funniest answers that the AP test proctors have ever gotten, like one student who begged, "I never learned this, just fail me." 

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  • 01
    scubalopsey I knew a guy who paid his alimony with personalized checks with him and his new GF on them. Every month his ex would get one of these checks. One of the funniest things I've ever heard.
    via Marah Bashir on Unsplash
  • 02
    Divorce lawyers of Reddit, what is the most insane (evil, funny, dumb) way a spouse has tried to screw the other?
    via u/DarkFander14
  • 03
    scubalopsey I knew a guy who paid his alimony with personalized checks with him and his new GF on them. Every month his ex would get one of these checks. One of the funniest things I've ever heard.
    via u/scubalopsey
  • 04
    BonhamsFourSticks They collected wolf t-shirts and Coca-Cola memorabilia and fought over disposition of that property. She sold a bunch of it on on eBay and violated the automatic temporary restraining order for selling marital property, and also told the judge that her soon-to-be ex was too skinny to wear the t-shirts, so he shouldn't get any of them.
    via u/BonhamsFourSticks
  • 05
    Dikutoy IANAL but work in the court system. Once case that came in was a couple divorcing on mutual terms, the husband had one child with her and the wife had a child from the previous marriage. He agreed to pay child support for both children, I guess he really cared about this other enough to support her even though it isn't his obligation.
    via u/Dikutoy
  • 06
    Judge signs the order, they go to set up the child support account and it gets kicked back saying you can't have two accounts for one child. Turns out she's been collecting child support from the biological father the entire time and never told him. She basically tried to milk two fathers for one child... and the other attorney knew about it.
    via u/Dikutoy
  • 07
    105degrees_andri... Not my case, but during my first year of law school lawyers from different practices came to give us a peek behind the curtain of different areas. The divorce lawyer told the story of rather well to do couple that spent months. and months and many tens of thousands of dollars fighting over absolutely
    via u/105degrees_andrising
  • 08
    everything all the way down to a single ceramic ashtray. He couldn't remember the significance, but somehow it had come through the husband's family. Even after everything else had been decided, they spent many more months and nearly $100,000 fighting over just this ashtray. Then, after a court hearing the wife finally won the ashtray.
    via u/105degrees_andrising
  • 09
    She promptly strode out to the white courthouse steps...and smashed the ceramic ashtray. Left the pieces all over for the husband to see on his way out. Decided that day I would not be a divorce lawyer. TL;DR. Spent $100k to win an ashtray only to smash it in spite.
    via u/105degrees_andrising
  • 10
    I am an interpreter who works frequently with police and lawyers. The most out there thing I ever interpreted in court went like this: • Ms. So-and-So, we know each other for a long time, correct? • Yes. • As a matter of fact, we have known each other for five years, correct?
    via r/AskReddit
  • 11
    • Yes. • And at the end of each and every meeting we had during the past five years, we always agreed on one thing, correct? • Yes. . Please, tell the judge what we agree on. • It's not okay to break in my ex's apartment and lick all his cutlery.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 12
    Id d Yet, here we are, Ms. So-and-So.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 13
    00... I used to go hiking and trekking a lot on my home. country (South America). I had this friend who was very experienced and he taught me a lot. For example: • I was packing my backpack and he said "put it on the floor and leave it. If it falls, it's unbalanced, and that will mess your back as
    via u/
  • 14
    you walk the whole day". Lesson: you have to have balance to go far • we were walking along a trail when he stopped and said: "wait, did you notice the splitting in the trail?" I didn't. He said look back no looked and there as a split, but you only noticed if you were going on the other
    via u/
  • 15
    direction. He said "when you are going back on the trail you'd wouldn't know which direction to go". Lesson: in life is good to stop from time to time and see past events from a new perspective.
    via u/
  • 16
    wakeup33 Another redditor a few years ago gave a story about a couple getting divorced. I couldn't find the OP, but here's a quote from a website that covered it:
    via u/wakeup33
  • 17
    u/TrueEnt: "Not me but a neighbor. The couple got divorced and she got the house in the settlement. Only the house and the immediate house lot, not the surrounding land, that went to the husband. The first thing he did was sell all the
    via u/wakeup33
  • 18
    lumber off the rest of the land. She went from living in a nice forest to living in a clear cut. He wasn't done yet! Once the trees were gone he sold off the topsoil, then the gravel under that. By the time he was done her house was on a hill overlooking a barren landscape
    via u/wakeup33
  • 19
    reminiscent of the lunar surface. This was years ago and the place is still hideous. Here's a Google Street View of the house. https://i.imgur.com/Y 6EM50x.jpg
    via u/wakeup33
  • 20
    222615 2018 Google
    via u/wakeup33
  • 21
    Wo... I don't practice divorce law, but I did an internship with a family law judge in law school that involved me sitting in on a lot of stuff. One divorced couple came in because the ex-husband wanted to lower his spousal support payments, due to his lowered income, great financial responsibilities, and the fact that his ex-wife was declining to seek paid
    via u/wolfmalfoy
  • 22
    employment, all of which sounds reasonable on the face. It turned out that while his income had been lowered due to 'cuts', his new wife, who technically worked as his 'assistant' (and had done so prior to the divorce) was now making quadruple her salary, more than he ever had.
    via u/wolfmalfoy
  • 23
    He claimed that his ex-wife had "unpaid renters" living with her and could have money to survive if she charged them rent- it turned out they were the couple's shared 18 year old twins who were living at home having just graduating. high school and were going to keep living at home while starting college in the fall. (It also later turned out that he allowed his step daughter and her two children to live
    via u/wolfmalfoy
  • 24
    with him and his wife rent free and paid for her college. His ex-wife produced evidence that he told his own kids to figure out paying for college themselves.) He claimed that his ex-wife worked as a nanny for free by choice and should be getting paid for work elsewhere. The kids she watched for free were their three joint grandchildren from their eldest child, two
    via u/wolfmalfoy
  • 25
    of which were severely dis __ed. He claimed that when he married his new wife he gained over fifteen new dependants, which was technically true, but those dependants were all in Mexico and included his new wife's grown siblings and their families, none of whom he had ever met.
    via u/wolfmalfoy
  • 26
    This dude was shocked when spousal support wasn't decreased.
    via u/wolfmalfoy
  • 27
    4Eights I worked at a computer repair store as a sales technician. Had a guy come in with a desktop that he wanted Windows reinstalled. I asked him if he wanted me to back up all of his data first and he told me that he had everything he wanted and just do the wipe. I put it in the queue and he paid and left.
    via u/4Eights
  • 28
    I started it about an hour later since an XP install was only about 45 minutes off the network. I didn't bother doing anything else except deleting the original partition. and making a new one and installing windows.
    via u/4Eights
  • 29
    About an hour after that his wife came running in asking if we had a computer with "Smith" as the last name. I told her I did and she showed me her ID and said that her husband brought it in to try and destroy all the proof of him cheating and stealing money from their business. When she asked if I had wiped everything yet I told her I just did a windows install and didn't actually really wipe anything.
    via u/4Eights
  • 30
    I called her husband and told him the situation. I told him his wife was here to get the computer. He asked me if I reinstalled windows like we spoke about and I told him I had. He told me "I don't give a , give her the computer. There isn't anything left on it anyway.". I said alright and hung up.
    via u/4Eights
  • 31
    I told her that he said I could give it to her and then explained to her how reinstalling windows doesn't magically delete everything and explained to her how I could recover all of her files in a couple of hours. I ended up staying late that night and she bought me pizza and mountain dew. I ended up recovering every file he tried to have me destroy and made multiple copies for
    via u/4Eights
  • 32
    her. She ended up calling him from the store and reading off some of the messages he had tried to delete from his emails. I was worried that he might try to come back in and confront me, but nothing else ever came of it.
    via u/4Eights
  • 33
    p4lm3r Personal experience, unbeknownst to me, my ex was having an affair. I worked a lot of hours, so I didn't pick up on it. We had always dreamed of buying a house on a huge local lake to retire in. We literally started shopping for houses and even toured a dozen or so. We found 2 well within our budget, but would need to sell our house first.
    via u/p4lm3r
  • 34
    My wife convinced me to take out a couple loans in my name and get a couple credit cards, again in my name, (most of the bills were in hers, and the mortgage was in hers) so I did. I spent about $25k in CC and loans to fully update our house and get it ready for market.
    via u/p4lm3r
  • 35
    As soon as the work was done, she told me she was leaving me and wanted to sell the house.
    via u/p4lm3r
  • 36
    wowitsclayton This one hits close to home because it happened between my parents. We had a family "friend" who was a lawyer and my parents agreed that he would be the lawyer for both of them as a mediator. So, as the assets were being divided my dad got absolutely slammed. She was going to get the house, cars, half his retirement, and an insane amount of
    via u/wowitsclayton
  • 37
    alimony. To the tune of like $2,500 a month for the rest of her life. My dad has a good job as a municipal employee, but that was probably 70%ish of his paycheck. Turns out that my mom and the "family friend" actually conspired to rip my dad off and make it seem like that's what a divorce settlement looks like. And she was going kick back more money
    via u/wowitsclayton
  • 38
    under the table after the dust had settled. Dad just didn't know how these things worked. So, after some convincing he finally went out and got his own. lawyer. He got a very fair divorce settlement after that. Mom still to this day can't understand why we don't talk to her much.
    via u/wowitsclayton
  • 39
    seeyousoonbaboon My uncle's ex tried to work it in that she would get half of whatever my grandmother would leave him when she passes. Joke's on her, my grandmother is passing over her kids (not maliciously, my uncle is very well off and so is my mom) and leaving everything to my brother and me.
    via u/seeyousoonbaboon
  • 40
    Oh, also tried to get sole custody of both of their children...who are in their twenty's...
    via u/seeyousoonbaboon
  • 41
    Filligrees_daddy Talking to my soon to be Uncle a few days before he married my Aunt. His second wife on their divorce wanted his boat. So he called his sons around. (From his first marriage) They took the motor off, lifted the boat onto their flatbed truck, drove to the ex wifes house, undid the straps, all three gave a
    via u/Filligrees_daddy
  • 42
    shove, the boat landed on her front lawn, then they drove home. Sold the boat trailer and motor for enough to go and buy a new setup.
    via u/Filligrees_daddy
  • 43
    ColoradoThinMint My craziest case was husband and wife legally separated in NY back in 2004. Wife moved to CA after the legal separation. There were varying stories as to why but husband moved to CA as well about 2 years later. Again for various reasons husband and wife moved in together in CA. Wife claimed they rekindled their relationship/marriage.
    via u/ColoradoThinMint
  • 44
    Husband claims they were merely roommates and the reason they moved in together was financial purposes that it didn't make sense for them to both have housing expenses. There was no ceremony to reinstate their marriage. Husband as a result of them living together and him covering the costs of the house he stopped paying the agreed to spousal support from the legal
    via u/ColoradoThinMint
  • 45
    separation. As you can imagine whether they were back together or just roommates things went south between them. I actually didn't represent either of these people I represented a third party who was one of the adult sons of husband and wife. Wife filed a request for the court to take notice of the
    via u/ColoradoThinMint
  • 46
    NY legal separation in CA for enforcement of non payment on spousal support. She then filed a separate request for legal separation in CA (which is stupid because they were already legally separated in NY and the CA court took notice of it). When wife wasn't getting anywhere with the legal separation filing she changed it to a request for dissolution.
    via u/ColoradoThinMint
  • 47
    Throughout the case she filed motions seeking all kinds of stuff, property, additional money, income from husbands rental properties he acquired after their NY legal separation, claims that he had hidden assets when they legally separated (despite the transcript from their legal separation court appearance has her attorney advising that full disclosures of financial information had not
    via u/ColoradoThinMint
  • 48
    been provided and there was potential undisclosed assets but wife was waiving any and all interest in husbands financial assets other than the agreed to spousal support). Again, for the most part wife was in pro per throughout this because no one would represent her crazy ass, most of her court filings were 70+ pages. Typically written in all capital letters
    via u/ColoradoThinMint
  • 49
    and incoherent saying things such as "LIES LIES ALL LIES AGAINST ME I TELL ONLY TRUTH TRUTH BEFORE GOD HUSBAND LYING SONS LYING ALL LIES." And then it would more or less repeat like that with some specific details of what she wanted or was accusing husband of but wouldn't last more than two sentences and the the incoherent repeating would resume.
    via u/ColoradoThinMint
  • 50
    She missed multiple court dates claiming illness. When she did bother to show up she'd either have a neck brace or eye patch on but miraculously wouldn't need either when she wasn't in the court room. When we had the trial she showed up 2 hours late on the first day, 45 minutes late on day 2 and then the judge had to end the trial early on day three because she refused to cross examine witnesses
    via u/ColoradoThinMint
  • 51
    she would just start narrating her story again and the judge told her either ask a question or I'm going to excuse the witness. She would then ask the judge to give her examples of questions she should ask. He would get very frustrated with her. The judge finally said he'd reviewed all the trial briefs and had heard husbands witnesses and testimony and asked the
    via u/ColoradoThinMint
  • 52
    parties to submit answers to some lingering questions he had in writing and he'd make his ruling after reviewing those. It was a crazy case. I was glad I just had third party.
    via u/ColoradoThinMint
  • 53
    lodoslomo Co-worker's ex husband told her one day that he wanted to buy her a new, bigger house. So they sold. belonging, put some in storage, sold the house they were living in, and moved to a hotel. The day she was
    via u/lodoslomo
  • 54
    served divorce papers she also noticed that both their joint accounts had been drained. He left her with nothing but an unpaid hotel bill.
    via u/lodoslomo
  • 55
    virtualelvisian Word of caution to sports fans. My friend had season tickets to a NFL team. Loved said NFL team probably more than the wife. Wife didn't care about football and never went to game until the divorce. The big bone of contention at court was over the season tickets. Ultimately, the spiteful wife won custody of tickets.
    via u/virtualelvisian
  • 56
    schmerpmerp He was frustrated by her hoarding. She was frustrated by his utter uselessness. He filed for divorce, and she was my client. Her prized possession was a room or two full of scrapbooking materials. His prized possession was a yard full of junk cars that he never worked on. They had no
    via u/schmerpmerp
  • 57
    children and no real assets. They hated each other more than any two people I'd ever met, and the only terms they would agree to were these: he gets the scrapbooking stuff, and she gets the cars. My client also took the house, as he had no income and didn't want it anyway. It was the shortest divorce decree I ever drafted. I intentionally squeezed it
    via u/schmerpmerp
  • 58
    onto one page, and the judge and I had a good laugh over it. Once the decree was signed and filed, she hauled all the scrapbooking stuff to the yard, and he removed it to the dump. She then called a junk shop I referred her to and had all of his cars removed from the yard.
    via u/schmerpmerp
  • 59
    These two also fought over a toilet brush, as he didn't want to have to buy one when he moved out. I politely instructed my client. to "give him the toilet brush."
    via u/schmerpmerp
  • 60
    diamondbw Not a lawyer.. But a good female friends husbands was leaving her. She quickly saw each of the lawyers for quick consults that he would of wanted to use. Thise lawyers could now not represent her husband. He 1. was
    via u/diamondbw

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